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13 NISAN 5775 • APRIL 2, 2015 • VOLUME XXXIV, NUMBER 7 • PERIODICALS POSTAGE PAID, SYRACUSE, NY

Jewish Foundation of Central New York funds Epstein students’ trip to Israel

By Cantor Paula Pepperstone Participants in Syracuse’s first “Teen Taste of Israel” trip returned home on February 22 after what they declared a “wonderful” nine-day tour of Israel.

Eleven ninth-grade students from the Rabbi Jacob H. Epstein High School of Jewish Studies and three chaperones participated in the trip, which was funded by an endowment fund of the Jewish Foundation of Central New York. Students said that highlights included swimming in the Dead Sea; deepening relationships with others on the trip; visiting the Kotel; riding camels in the Negev; climbing Masada; experiencing hail and snow in Jerusalem; participating in a snowball fight in the Old City; and visiting the Yitzchak Rabin Center in Tel Aviv.

Student Michale Bess Schueler said, “The trip has inspired me in so many ways. I realized that I wanted to be involved in Judaic studies. I had never really understood what I meant when I said, ‘I’m Jewish’ until I stood in front of the [Western] Wall that had meant so much to

my ancestors. I now plan to be a Jewish advocate and help others experience what I did at the Kotel.”

Ninth-grade student Rebecca Teitelbaum said, “I really appreciate the donation that allowed us to travel to Israel.

It was truly an amazing and meaningful experience. It allowed me to get in touch with my Jewish heritage on a more visceral level. This trip truly changed my life.”

The students, parents, staff and board of the Epstein School expressed their gratitude to the Syracuse Jewish community’s donors who made the trip possible.

Participant Zachary Cooper said, “It is an experience we will never forget.”

To become a donor for future Teen Taste of Israel trips, contact Linda Alexander at the Jewish Foundation of Central New York at LAlexander@JewishFoundationCNY.org. To learn more about the Epstein School and how teenagers can join a future trip, contact Cantor Paula Pepperstone, the director of the Rabbi Jacob H. Epstein High School of Jewish Studies, at EpsteinCNY@gmail.com.

Students of the Rabbi Jacob H. Epstein High School of Jewish Studies, chaperones and Cantor Paula Pepperstone, the school’s director, visited the Kotel, the Western Wall, in Jerusalem on the recent “Teen Taste of Israel” trip, which was funded by the Jewish Community Foundation of Central New York.

Turkish synagogue to reopen

(JTA) – The Great Synagogue of Edirne in Turkey will reopen following a five-year government-sponsored restoration.

The synagogue, which was to be rededicated on March 26, was rebuilt with $2.5 million of government funds that have restored its formerly collapsed domes and vibrant polychrome interior, Reuters reported. The restoration has been done despite the fact that Edirne, near Turkey’s western border with Greece and Bulgaria, has only one parttime Jewish resident.

The resident, Rifat Mitrani, grew up in Edirne and married his wife in the synagogue, but he now only lives in the city during the week to look after his two supermarkets. He returns to his family in Istanbul for Shabbat, according to Reuters.

The synagogue, built in 1907, was closed in 1983. It was modeled originally after Vienna’s Leopoldstadter Tempel, which has since been destroyed, according to the Hurriyet Daily News.

Last November, the governor of Edirne threatened to reopen the building only as a museum and not as a synagogue, but he subsequently apologized

for his remarks and backed down from his threat.

2015 Federation paign Update Cam

To make your pledge, please contact Marianne at 445-2040 ext. 102 or mbazydlo@jewishfederationCNY.org.

Goal: $1,000,000

We’re almost there!

$954,248

as of March 30, 2015

C A N D L E L I G H T I N G A N D P A R AS H A April 3.......................7:15 pm.......................................................Parasha-Passover April 4.......................after 8:17 pm............................................................Passover April 9.......................7:22 pm.......................................... Parasha-Passover-Yizkor April 10.....................7:23 pm.....................................................................Passover April 17.....................7:31 pm....................................................... Parasha-Shemini

INSIDE THIS ISSUE “Above and Beyond”

Passover

Refuge in a zoo

Temple Adath Yeshurun will A look at a matzah baker in During World War II, some Jews screen the documentary “Above Ukraine and at the 90-year-old found a safe refuge hiding in the Streit’s bakery; and recipes. and Beyond” on April 19.

Warsaw Zoo. Story on page 9-11 Story on page 3 Story on page 12

PLUS Health Care Greetings........... 9 Personal Greetings................11 Calendar Highlights............. 14 Obituaries............................... 15

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JEWISH OBSERVER ■ april 2, 2015/13 NISAN 5775

a matter of opinion Federation Board statement following the Israeli elections By a majority of the Federation Board of Directors, the Jewish Federation of Central New York applauds the democratic process in the recent Israeli elections for being free and

open to all Israeli citizens regardless of religion or ethnic background. We will always support Israel’s right to exist within defined and secure borders and will further support its

positive efforts to attain a real and lasting peace with its neighbors.

We do not support any attempts to polarize the relationship between the United States and Israel. The

U.S.-Israeli relationship has been bipartisan since the creation of the state of Israel and should remain so as a matter of shared interests and values.

a matter of opinion Federation funds Hillel students’ Alternative Winter Break trip to Argentina

By Sam Reiner One of the recipients of a Community Program Fund grant from the Jewish Federation of Central New York is Hillel at Syracuse University. Through Hillel’s Alternative Spring and Winter Breaks, students have the opportunity to travel to locations in the United States and abroad to help people in need.

Alternate Winter Break in Argentina In December, four Syracuse University students and I traveled to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where we met up with 10 students from Loyola Marymount University to do community service. Buenos Aires has an enormous Jewish population within the city and our trip assisted many social organizations to improve the community. We worked with several organizations, including Fundación Tzedaká, Le Dor Va Dor, Sonrisas and ORY Asociación Civil.

Tzedaká is a general social work organization with divisions that work with children, house homeless families, continue education and support several other areas of social improvement.

While working with Tzedaká, we went to a clothing donation center to help the people there sort and bag the clothes they had received so that they could be sold more easily.

At Le Dor Va Dor, a home for the elderly, the students were given a quick tour of the facility and a description of what makes Le Dor Va Dor a wellrespected community. After the tour, we assisted some of the members of the community in various arts and crafts. We could see their faces light up while they were conversing with us through their broken English and our broken Spanish.

Sonrisas was the most rewarding experience for many of the students.

It is an organization located outside of Buenos Aires where there is an after-school daycare for children whose

Hillel at Syracuse University President Sarah Schugel held a child at Sonrisas in Argentina during the Hillel at Syracuse University alternate winter break. parents are not home when school ends.

While at Sonrisas, we were asked to help with beautification. We organized toys, kitchen supplies and other donations, and swept the floors, cleaned the windows and helped make the area safer.

Many of the children tried to help us with our tasks and many of the students connected with the children. Some of the students were so affected by our time at Sonrisas that they donated their extra pesos to the organization.

The work at ORY also affected us all deeply. Located in Buenos Aires, it has created a community for mentally handicapped Jewish adults. While working with ORY, we helped decorate for the upcoming Chanukah celebration and set up for an upcoming play. We then participated in a yoga session and, finally, we celebrated Chanukah with ORY and lit the chanukiah.

Overall, the trip to Buenos Aires was very rewarding, not only for the students but also for the several

correction

The following photo should have appeared with the article “JCC’s Purim Carnival delivered non-stop fun” in the March 19 issue of the Jewish Observer. The Jewish Observer apologizes for the error.

Hillel at Syracuse University students posed with a member of the Le Dor Va Dor community, a home for the elderly. L-r: Hillel President Sarah Schugel, a community resident, Sam Reiner (standing), Erica Tietz (from Loyola Marymount University) and Hannah Gardner. organizations and people we helped.

We will never forget our experiences and the people. Without the donation from the Federation, the trip would not have been possible. The Federation’s continued support of Syracuse Hillel lets us experience new programs such as this one.

of Central New York

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Rabbi Daniel Fellman (right) as “Hamantashen Man” had a little role-playing fun as he extended his wrists to be handcuffed and surrendered to Randy Andrews, a DeWitt police investigator.

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Alternative Spring Break in Arkansas Twelve Syracuse University Hillel students, Hillel Executive Director Brian Small, members of the Jewish Disaster Relief Corps and a group of Penn State students decided to travel to Mayflower See “Hillel” on page 6 All articles, announcements and photographs must be received by noon Wednesday, 15 days prior to publication date.

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AROUND CENTRAL NEW YORK TAY to present “Above and Beyond” showing on April 19

By Barbara S. Simon Temple Adath Yeshurun will present the regional premier of the documentary “Above and Beyond,” produced

by Nancy Spielberg and directed by Roberta Grossman, on Sunday, April 19, at 10 am.

“Above and Beyond” is the first feature-length film to explore the contribution of Jewish American pilots who flew for Israel in its War of Independence in 1948. Nine former pilots were interviewed and the film traces their route from the United States to Israel through Panama, Italy and Czechoslovakia. One of the pilots, Len Lenart, led the Israeli Air Force’s first combat mission on May 29, 1948, and stopped the invading Egyptians 30 miles

from Tel Aviv. Lenart said, “I was born to be there at that moment in history. It’s the most important thing I did in my life.” The contribution of the volunteers is said to have helped turn the tide of the war. Through their personal stories, the film explores how this experience became “life-altering” for the young pilots.

Spielberg recently began producing documentary films. She has been called an accomplished business woman, fund-raiser and philanthropist. Grossman is an award-winning filmmaker, whose most recent film, “Hava Nagila (The Movie),” was shown at Temple Adath for Selichot 2013. Her previous film, “Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh,”

was short-listed for an Academy Award and nominated for a Primetime Emmy.

The movie is sponsored by the adult education chavurah and funded by the Anita and Abraham Altman Fund.

Group Co-Chair Allan Kanter said, “We welcome the community to join with us to watch this film. It’s a wonderful segue into the communitywide Yom Ha’atzmaut celebration that will happen only days later.”

The program will begin with a continental breakfast at 9:30 am, with the film shown at 10 am. There will be no charge for the event. For more information, call the TAY office at 445-0002 or visit www.adath.org. The film’s trailer can be viewed at www.adath.org.

Anti-Defamation League trains Jewish teens in Syracuse

By Judith L. Stander The Jewish Federation of Central New York and Hillel at Syracuse University have invited representatives from the Anti-Defamation League to present a program for Jewish teenagers on Sunday, April 12, from 1-3 pm, at the Winnick Hillel Center for Jewish Life on the SU campus.

The Anti-Defamation League fights antisemitism and other forms of bigotry, defends democratic ideals and protects civil rights. It has been considered “a leader in the development of materials, programs and services,

building bridges of communication, understanding and respect among diverse groups and carrying out its mission” through a network of 27 regional and satellite offices in the United States and one in Israel.

The organization accomplishes its goals through the use of information, education, legislation and advocacy.

ADL serves as a resource for government, media, law enforcement, educators and the public. Founded in 1913, it has been considered among the nation’s premier civil rights and human relations agencies.

Jewish high school juniors, seniors and their parents, as

well as Hillel students, have been invited to participate in the program. Materials have been specifically created to focus on how to assess the political climate on a college campus and how to safely respond to words and actions from students, faculty or groups that might be identified as antisemitic or anti-Israel.

The free program will include a light, kosher lunch.

Reservations are required to ensure adequate seating and sufficient food. For more information or to make a reservation, contact Judith Stander at 445-0161, ext.

114, or jstander@jewishfederationcny.org.

Syracuse Hebrew Day School, Rabbi Epstein School and Jewish Family Service connect for family wellness

By Deborah Ellis A question of what Syracuse-area Jewish families need to nurture “strong, healthy and well-functioning individuals” and “form the building blocks of a thriving Jewish community,” was the stimulus behind Family Wellness Connections, a new program being offered

by Syracuse Jewish Family Service, Syracuse Hebrew Day School and the Rabbi Jacob Epstein High School for Jewish Studies.

SHDS Head of School Lori Tenenbaum said, “Support, affirmation, guidance, education, the chance to explore and find coping strategies for difficult issues that arise.

These are needs all families have. A partnership with SJFS, the social service experts in the Jewish community, seemed a natural opportunity to create a resource to help members of our Jewish community this way, as well as provide the capacity to follow up on greater challenges that might emerge for any given family.” She added, “Ultimately the strength of our community rests on the strength of the individuals and families in it.”

Made possible by a Community Program Fund grant from the Jewish Federation of Central New York, Family Wellness Connections will begin with a free, family

session with an SJFS therapist to create a “Family Personality Profile.” Designed to help families understand and improve their functioning as a unit, the structured process targets domains that operate in every family: family dynamics and well-being, cohesiveness, conflict resolution, family leadership and emotional expressiveness. The interview can be conducted at the day school, Epstein, SJFS or in the participants’ home, and different time formats are available for the appointment. A profile report, tailored to each individual family, is mailed or e-mailed to the family. It includes articulation of family goals; provides analysis of strong points and areas of potential need; and suggests resources the family might want to pursue for additional investigation.

SJFS Director Judith Huober said, “We believe all families benefit from the opportunity to discover and celebrate their own identities – their personalities, if you will. Sometimes this ‘just’ helps a family and its members feel good about themselves and enjoy each other more. For some, it leads to new growth; and for others, to a desire for deeper investigation and attention to things that could stand a little work or improvement. And occasionally, an initial exploration of this kind uncovers issues that have

been simmering under the surface. For these reasons, we made sure to build in optional follow-up components to the Wellness Connections program, such as free family therapy sessions and a participatory webinar series on common parenting and family issues.”

Families who complete the personality profile have See “Family” on page 4

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Sam Pomeranz Jewish Community Center senior dining menu April 6-10 Monday – Passover – no lunch Tuesday – Passover – no lunch Wednesday – Passover – no lunch Thursday – Passover – no lunch Friday – Passover – no lunch April 13-17 Monday – hamburger on bun Tuesday – chicken rollatini Wednesday – sliced turkey with gravy Thursday – tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwich Friday – apricot glazed chicken The Bobbi Epstein Lewis JCC Senior Adult

To advertise, please contact Bonnie Rozen at 800-779-7896, ext. 244 or bonnie@ thereportergroup.org

The Jcc and CONg. Beth SholoM Graciously accept Donated Vehicles.

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Dining Program at the Sam Pomeranz Jewish Community Center offers Va’ad Ha’ir-supervised kosher lunches served Monday-Friday at noon. Reservations are required by noon on the previous business day and there is a suggested contribution per meal. The menu is subject to change. The program is funded by a grant from the Onondaga County Department of Aging and Youth and the New York State Office for the Aging, with additional funds provided by the JCC. To attend, one need not be Jewish or a member of the JCC. For more information or to make a reservation, contact Leesa Paul at 445-2360, ext. 104, or lpaul@jccsyr.org.

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JEWISH OBSERVER ■ april 2, 2015/13 NISAN 5775

congregational notes Congregation Beth Sholom-Chevra Shas United Synagogue Youth The Congregation Beth SholomChevra Shas United Synagogue Youth Achla chapter will sponsor its annual talent show on Sunday, April 12, at 4 pm. Members of the congregation of all ages have been invited to demonstrate their talents. Singers, musicians, poets, writers, magicians, jugglers and dancers have all been encouraged to participate. There will be refreshments sold, with the proceeds going toward the chapter’s tikkun olam contribution to USY for projects chosen by each region, as well as scholarships for USY summer programs.

For more information, contact David Strinkovsky, CBS-CS youth coordinator, at cbscs.kad.usy@gmail.com.

Men’s Club The CBS-CS Men’s Club will hold a breakfast on Sunday, April 12, at 10 am.

The meeting will feature a series of short lectures on the theme “The Holocaust – History, Legacy and Responsibility.”

The keynote speaker will be Alan Goldberg, CBS-CS past president, as well as the coordinator of the Spector/Warren Fellowship and director of Regional Holocaust and Genocide Initiative at Syracuse University.

The presentations will teach more about the Shoah and how it continues to impact Jewry in 2015. There will be a charge to cover the cost of food. For more information, contact CBS-CS Men’s Club President Tony Kennesen-Adams at aka@ twcny.rr.com.

Shabbat dinner for families and fifth-eighth-graders There will be a Shabbat dinner for families with children in fifth-eighth grade on Friday, April 17, following the 6 pm service. A traditional chicken dinner will be catered by the CBS-CS Sisterhood.

The dinner will follow the monthly Shirat Shabbat with Lisa Levens.

For more information, contact Julie Tornberg, director of youth and education, at 701-2685 or director@cbscs.org.

L-r: Caleb Porter (in the background), Beth MacCrindle, Asher Rood-Creel, Shellie Telpner and Gabe and Jarrod Bagatell packed mishloach manot baskets to be delivered to all Congregation Beth Sholom-Chevra Shas members and college students, and Jewish Family Service clients, for Purim.

Temple Adath Yeshurun

By Barbara S. Simon TAY MISHPACHA Shabbat Temple Adath Yeshurun will host a Mishpacha (family) Shabbat on Saturday, April 18, at 10:30 am, followed by a kiddush lunch.

Mishpacha Shabbat is a monthly program with Shabbat morning services for various age groups. This month, the groups will celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut with sto-

Syracuse’s Tri-Faith Adventure

By Daniella Kohan and Rabbi Daniel Fellman Temple Concord Rabbi Daniel Fellman and Reverend William Redfield led a trip to Israel from February 11-24. Members of various faiths participated in the journey and the tour visited Jewish, Christian and Muslim holy sites.

The group spent time at the Dead Sea, explored the city of Tel Aviv and even experienced a snow day in Jerusalem,

L-r: Asher Rood-Creel, Corinne Dushay, Lily Sorbello and Mia Cohen participated in “Wacky Wednesday” at Congregation Beth Sholom-Chevra Shas’ Religious School.

as well as many other historic places.

Fellman said, “Every trip to Israel has its holiness and awe. This trip was filled with the desire to learn more, understand more and experience more, and it was an extraordinary journey for all.”

While the group was in Israel, they coincidentally ran into many other Syracuse residents. The multifaith group met another group touring Israel from See “Adventure” on page 5

The Temple Concord-led multifaith group ran into former Temple Concord congregant and teacher Irwin Blank and his wife, Iris (front row, second and third from the left). The family made aliyah years ago.

Family

L-r: Congregation Beth Sholom-Chevra Shas pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students Lila Temes, Sarah Kuss, Ariella Shever, Sammy Sevak, Tammy Greenblatt and Mia Cabrey, in dress for Purim, posed in front of tzedakah boxes created by the CBS-CS Religious School students as part of their gimilut chasidim (acts of loving kindness) curriculum.

ries, songs, activities and food related to Israel. Children from birth-kindergarten and their parents can participate in Tot Shabbat at 10:30 am; children in first-fifth grade can attend Junior Congregation at 10:30 am, and sixth-12th grade students will help lead the main services.

For more information, contact Alicia Cafarchio Gross at alicia@adath.org or 445-0002.

the option of enrolling in a free series of up to five sessions with an SJFS therapist. These sessions can be used to help in problem areas identified in the profile report, or focus on other needs the family brings up.

Another basic component of family wellness identified during development of the project is community, and connections within families as well as among families. Cantor Paula Pepperstone, director of the Epstein School, said, “Jewish community schools are the place people come together to care for and educate healthy Jewish children and teens, as well as support the healthy Jewish families that form the resilient fabric of our Jewish community. Our mission as Jewish educational and social service agencies begins and ends with meeting children, teens and parents where they are to ensure the necessary preconditions for learning and social functioning: emotional security, psychological health and communal relationship.”

To that end, later this year Wellness Connections will host interactive webinars for parents targeting challenges faced by today’s families, including managing peer influence; raising children who do not bully or get bullied; raising the tech generation; bringing up children with a sense of self-worth – not entitlement; how to get desirable behaviors without engaging in unwanted behaviors; building emotional intelligence and resiliency; nurturing respect and healthy communication in the family; and the “oxygen mask principle” of how to manage caring for parents as well.

Continued from page 3

In the webinars, SJFS and other community experts will provide learning points and facilitate an online conversation among attendees, with options for anonymity or disclosure of a family’s identity. Huober said, “The goal is to stimulate conversation; provide expert input into families’ search for coping mechanisms and strategies to face normal challenges; create an opportunity for mutual support and relationship building; and help everyone acknowledge the help-seeking and help-offering process for what it is – healthy support for wellness that is needed by all.”

SJFS marriage and family therapy intern Melanie Gonzalez said, “My hope is that every family will be open to sharing this unique experience. I believe everyone can learn something new from a process like this, and that it can offer a special moment when a family can highlight their strengths and build on them. These days, families can feel very isolated and distant from other families and even their own extended families. I hope people will reach for this as one of those rare opportunities for their loved ones to come together and talk about the most important thing they all have in common – each other.” Gonzalez has worked on the project since its inception.

Wellness Connections is currently open to all Jewish families with students at Syracuse Hebrew Day School and the Epstein School. To schedule a family personality profile appointment, call Deborah Ellis at SJFS at 446-9111, ext. 256. Organizers hope to be able to expand the program to all families in the community if there is enough demand.

APRIL 2, 2015/13 NISAN 5775 ■

JEWISH OBSERVER

JCC to offer “Senior Lunch and Learn” program on elder law April 17

By William Wallak The Sam Pomeranz Jewish Community Center of Syracuse will hold a senior lunch and learn program on the topic of elder law on Friday, April 17, from noon-2 pm, at the JCC, 5655 Thompson Rd., DeWitt.

The guest speaker will be Mary Helen McNeal, professor of law and director of the Elder Law Clinic at Syracuse University’s College of Law. The program will begin with a hot kosher lunch, to be followed by the elder

law presentation. McNeal will touch upon common legal issues facing seniors such as wills, power of attorney, advance directives and financial abuse.

There will be a small, suggested contribution for the lunch portion. There will be no cost to attend only the guest speaker’s portion of the program, which will start at 12:30 pm. Registration will be required and may be made by calling 445-2360 by noon on Thursday, April 16.

The JCC lunch and learn series was

launched last month and is designed to offer individuals age 60 and older “useful and timely” information on a range of issues facing seniors. The free monthly meetings feature local professionals covering topics on health, wellness, finances, legal matters, caregiving and more. The new JCC program is funded by a grant from the Green Family Foundation.

The JCC’s lunch and learns are an added monthly component to the Bobbi Epstein Lewis Senior Adult Dining Program,

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which offers seniors age 60 and older a well-balanced, kosher meal on weekdays at noon for a small, suggested contribution. It is the only senior nutrition program available in upstate New York serving kosher meals five days per week. The program is funded in part by the Onondaga County Department of Aging and Youth and the New York State Office for the Aging and Administration for Community Living. For more information or to make a lunch reservation, call 445-2360.

Kidz after-school program coming to the JCC April 15

By William Wallak The Sam Pomeranz Jewish Community Center of Syracuse will host a Bricks 4 Kidz after-school program on Wednesdays, starting April 15, from 4:30-5:30 pm at the JCC, 5655 Thompson Rd., DeWitt.

The six-week, interactive program for children in kindergarten-sixth grade will provide opportunities to learn, build and play with LEGO bricks. The program will be run by staff from the Bricks 4 Kidz store in the ShoppingTown Mall.

“We’re really excited to be offering this Bricks 4 Kidz program for the first time here at the JCC,” said Mick Hagan, the JCC’s director of children and teen services. “LEGOs are so cool; it seems like they never go out of style. I’m so confident that the kids will love the program, we’ve even added a Bricks 4 Kidz summer camp session this summer.”

Bricks 4 Kidz activities are built around proprietary model plans designed by engineers and architects, and offer various

Menorah Park e-mail addresses change

The e-mail domain for Menorah Park has changed. It is now @menorahparkofcny. com, with the “of” being the addition to the previous spelling. The individual name component of the e-mail addresses remain the same.

Adventure

themes, such as space, construction and amusement parks.

For more information about the Bricks

4 Kidz program at the JCC, including pricing and registration, call 445-2360 or visit www.jccsyr.org.

Women Transcending Boundaries

Women Transcending Boundaries will present a program on Sunday, April 19, from 3-5 pm, at InterFaith Works, 1010 James St., Syracuse, on human trafficking, a problem around the world, in every U.S. state and even locally.

All women have been invited to join WTB to hear stories of two young people who have been hurt by human trafficking. Following their presentation, local authorities will speak and discuss what can be done to help in the local community.

WTB is an egalitarian community of

women from many faiths and cultural traditions. Through programs, events and social interactions, participants seek to nurture mutual respect and understanding by sharing information about their beliefs, customs and practices, and by working together to address their common concerns in the post-9/11 world. The group’s additional intent is to share participants’ personal and collective experiences with the wider community, to educate and to serve. For more information, visit www. wtb.org.

Continued from page 4

Syracuse, and a few days later were reunited with Temple Concord students learning in Israel. Fellman said, “Running into so many people from Syracuse was a highlight for me. It was a treat to spend time in Israel with so many people from our own city.”

During the 14-day trip, the group visited a number of holy sites, including Nazareth at Bethlehem and Christian sites around the Galilee. They explored the Temple Mount and the Jewish,

Christian and Muslim quarters in the Old City. They spent some time seeing Caesarea, Beit She’an and Yad Vashem as well.

Trip participant Stewart Koenig said, “Every day of our journey was meaningful and lots of fun as well. A most emotional moment was our first look at Jerusalem from Mt. Scopus. As this was a multifaith trip, both Jews and Christians at that moment were overwhelmed by the city’s beauty and significance.”

Temple Concord led a multifaith group on a two-week trip to Israel. Along the way, they ran into old friends and eight inches of snow in Jerusalem. At a restaurant in Tel Aviv, they met another multifaith group of Syracuse hospital chaplains led

by Rabbi Irvin Beigel.

About the cover

This year’s Passover cover was designed by Jenn DePersis, production coordinator for The Reporter Group, which publishes the Jewish Observer.

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Visit the JO online at jewishfederationcny.org and click on Jewish Observer

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JEWISH OBSERVER ■ april 2, 2015/13 NISAN 5775

SHDS leaders attend North American Jewish Day School Conference

By Melissa Fellman and Tracey Spicer In early March, a five-person delegation represented the Syracuse Jewish community at the North American Jewish Day School Conference in Philadelphia, PA. Head of School Lori Tenenbaum, SHDS Board President Melissa Fellman, SHDS board member and Federation President Ruth Stein, SHDS teacher and admissions director Melissa Neri and former SHDS head of school and current RAVSAK board member Barbara Davis spent three days learning best practices and networking with day school leaders from around the country.

Fellman said, “While it was reassuring to see how SHDS is doing compared to other schools, I learned a great deal about how we can improve our school today and secure our school for the next generation.”

Davis added, “These conferences are always so amazing. They provide a unique opportunity to connect with other lay and professional Jewish educational leaders from all across the country, and also from upstate New York. We share effective strategies, learn from one another and from experts, and explore new trends and new directions. I was particularly impressed to see how a younger generation of leadership is generating excitement and enthusiasm for community day school education and look forward to seeing the

NEWS IN bRIEF From JTA

Alleged Kansas City JCC shooter pleads not guilty

Frazier Glenn Miller has pleaded not guilty to charges that he murdered three people outside two Kansas City-area Jewish institutions. Miller, 74, entered the plea on March 27 in the U.S. District Court in Johnson County, KS. He asked for a speedy trial, within 150 days, despite objections from his lawyers, Reuters reported. Judge Thomas Kelly Ryan set an Aug. 17 trial date. The judge denied Miller’s request for Internet access while he is in jail awaiting trial. Earlier in March, the judge ruled that there was enough evidence to try Miller, who also goes by the name Frazier Glenn Cross Jr., for the April 13, 2014, murders – two in the parking lot of the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City in Overland Park, KS, and one in the parking lot at Village Shalom, a Jewish assisted-living facility a few blocks away.

In addition to capital murder, Miller is charged with three counts of attempted first-degree murder, one count of aggravated assault and one count of criminal discharge of a weapon at a structure. State prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty. Miller, a former Ku Klux Klan grand dragon, told the Kansas City Star that he began planning the attacks when he became so sick with emphysema that he thought he would die soon, and that he conducted reconnaissance missions of the JCC and Village Shalom in the days before the shootings. “I wanted to make damned sure I killed some Jews or attacked the Jews before I died,” he told the newspaper. None of his victims was Jewish.

At right, seated (l-r): Syracuse Hebrew Day School Head of School Lori Tenenbaum, SHDS Board President Melissa Fellman and SHDS teacher and admissions director Melissa Neri. Standing: SHDS board member and Federation President Ruth Stein and former SHDS head of school and current RAVSAK board member Barbara Davis.

The group attended the North American Jewish Day School Conference in March. field grow and thrive as a result of their commitment and energy.”

Stein concurred, saying, “Attending the conference was an inspiring experience. Attending sessions in the Small Schools block helped me make connections and get ideas on issues that all schools are facing. It also made me realize how special and essential Hebrew day schools are and how fortunate we are to have such an exceptional school in Syracuse.”

Tenenbaum stated, “The NAJDSC offered heads of Jewish day schools, professionals and lay leaders the opportunity to network, learn and share with one another. In both formal learning sessions and in open-space discussions, we were able to glean ideas, data and tools to help us become even more

Hillel

and Vilonia, AR, to help with tornado disaster relief during their spring break. In April 2014, an F4 tornado (the maximum rating is F5) ripped through the towns of Vilonia and Mayflower, destroying many homes and buildings. Almost a year after the disaster, there was still a lot of work that needed to be done.

When we arrived in Arkansas, we were given the task to complete in our week of service: to make the communities more beautiful than when we arrived.

I believed that we easily accomplished our task and even surpassed the expectations set for us. We spent most of our time cleaning debris from land plots. Some of the land had visible structures, such as houses; some were empty; and some had new houses on the lots.

While cleaning the debris, we were saddened by the debris in the lots that depicted what used to be someone’s life. We found old toys, clothes and many more household items. The empty lots we

successful in our schools.”

Finally, Neri said, “Networking is vital in a small school setting such as the Syracuse Hebrew Day School. The 2015 North American Jewish Day School Conference provided the ideal opportunity to meet teachers, administrators and board members from Jewish day schools across the country. We were able to share stories, learn from one another’s experiences and brainstorm ideas that will improve the future of our Jewish day schools. The conference also provided training sessions that focused on pedagogy as well as the everyday mechanics of successfully maintaining a Jewish day school. It was a meaningful learning experience that provided many tools that can be used in the classroom and throughout the school.”

Continued from page 2 helped clear were designated to have new houses built for the families affected by the disaster. We also assisted homeowners clean up their front and backyards. We removed the vestiges of homes, barns and sheds, and debris that might have come from other houses. We helped make the properties cleaner and safer for the community.

One thing that is usually not considered is the enormous loss of trees and foliage after a natural disaster.

To help replace some of this foliage, we planted trees and bushes at an elderly woman’s home. Had we not run out of time, we would have visited several more houses to plant trees. We also spent one day working with the Vilonia Baptist Federation to help sort clothes that had been donated. We arranged clothes by size, age and gender, then helped put those clothes into boxes for them to be shipped to a new location at a later date.

While we were in Arkansas, we exceeded expectations of making the communities more beautiful than when we had arrived. We worked tirelessly and so hard that, by the end of the week, we had run out of lots to clean. Through our hard work and dedication, we helped a segment of people from Arkansas know that the country had not forgotten about their tragedy and that there were still people out there willing to help them. Had it not been for the extremely generous donation made by the Jewish Federation of Central New York, the lives of the students and the lives of the people in Arkansas would not have been changed for the better.

LARRY METZGER Owner

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6340 Danbury Drive Jamesville, NY 13078-9729 (315) 446-0966 Fax (315) 446-1555 Email:LMPainting@aol.com

Participants in the trip celebrated Chanukah at a community for mentally handicapped Jewish adults created by ORY Asociación Civil.

Trip participants celebrated Chanukah at the Buenos Aires Hillel.

APRIL 2, 2015/13 NISAN 5775 ■

JEWISH OBSERVER

JCC 2015 summer camp registration is now open

By William Wallak Registration for the Sam Pomeranz Jewish Community Center of Syracuse’s 2015 Camp Rishon began in early March. The summer day camp for children and teenagers will run Monday-Friday for eight weeks from June 29-August 21. Camp Rishon offers a variety of programs that offer campers the opportunity to establish friendships, gain experience and participate in activities throughout the summer.

Last year, approximately 500 children attended Camp Rishon.

The camp offers different enrollment

options for three separate age groups.

The early childhood camp is for children from 6-weeks old to entering kindergarten; school-age camp is open to children entering first-sixth grade; and the Syracruisin’ teen travel camp is for teenagers entering seventh-10th grade. All of the early childhood and school-age camps, except for scheduled off-site field trips and certain off-site specialty camps, are held at the JCC, 5655 Thompson Rd., DeWitt. Camp days will begin and end at the JCC, with Syracruisin’ beginning and ending each day at The Syracuse Project 4 Our Teens, the JCC’s teen center in

Irwin and Beth Goldberg donate piano to Menorah Park Irwin Goldberg and his wife, Beth, have donated a new Kawai Concert Performer digital piano for the second floor of Menorah Park. A former East SyracuseMinoa High School music teacher, Irwin volunteers at Menorah Park, along with Cantor Francine Berg, as they lead the Menorah Park chorus in a weekly hour-

ShoppingTown Mall, 3649 Erie Blvd.

E., DeWitt. Early and late care options are available for all campers.

Once again this summer, the JCC will offer a Yachad (Hebrew for “all together”) inclusion program for school-age children with special needs. The program aims to create a sense of community among participants of all abilities by utilizing additional support staff and making necessary accommodations. There will be no additional cost to enroll qualified children in the Yachad program, provided the JCC’s grant funding is approved again this year.

Current JCC membership or program enrollment is not necessary for a child

7

to attend Camp Rishon programs. Early registration is recommended, as many sessions close quickly. Camp Rishon registration will continue throughout the spring and close at the start of each camp session or when a session is full, whichever comes first. Discounts are available for siblings and for payments made in full at the time of registration.

A limited number of scholarships in the form of financial aid are also available.

The scholarship application deadline is Friday, May 15.

For more information about Camp Rishon, or to request the summer camp program guide, call 445-2360 or visit www.jccsyr.org.

long singing session.

Victoria Kohl, Menorah Park’s foundation director, said, “Our residents love the music sessions, and the generosity of the Goldbergs simply cannot be overlooked, as this piano provides hours of music – accompanied and unaccompanied – for our residents and even our staff.”

The Sam Pomeranz Jewish Community Center of Syracuse Camp Rishon counselors addressed campers on the JCC’s front lawn at the start of the 2014 summer camp season.

Irwin Goldberg played at the piano that he and his wife, Beth, recently donated to the second floor at Menorah Park.

Spain moves closer to granting citizenship to Sephardic Jews (JNS.org) – Spain has moved closer to approving legislation aimed at granting citizenship to descendants of Sephardic Jews who were expelled during the Spanish Inquisition.

The Spanish parliament recently approved the law, which will now head to the Spanish senate for consideration. The law is expected to go into effect in May, with the citizenship-application process beginning at the end of 2015.

According to the draft law, the applicants would first need to prove their Sephardic background through either their local

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Jewish community or a direct family link.

Authorities also may accept applicants with a Sephardic surname or the ability to speak Ladino, the Spanish-Hebrew hybrid language. Next, the applicants would need to show a special connection to Spain such as speaking Spanish, in addition to taking a basic test about the country.

Spanish Justice Minister Alberto Ruiz Gallardon first introduced the legislation early last year. Gallardon said at the time that the bill would repair “one of the most significant errors” in Spanish history.

See “Spain” on page 10

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JEWISH OBSERVER ■ april 2, 2015/13 NISAN 5775

Maimonides Society

The Jewish Federation of Central New York Maimonides Society met on March 11 at Traditions at the Links. Dr. Robert Weisenthal, an ophthalmologist and the guest speaker, was joined by his wife, Dr. Jenni Weisenthal, and Dr. Gwen Kay and Dr. Jef Sneider, chair of the Maimonides Society. Weisenthal spoke about experiences

Drs. Irv Goldman, David Hootnick, William Tucker and Jewish Federation of Central New York President/ CEO Linda Alexander at the March Maimonides Society event.

from his 20 years of surgical mission trips to Le Ceiba, Honduras, to perform cataract and corneal transplant surgery. The Maimonides Society recognized “the generosity of healthcare professionals in the local Jewish community.”

The requisite for membership is a minimum family pledge of $1,000 to the Annual Campaign.

L-r: Drs. Robert and Jenni Weisenthal, Gwen Kay and Dr. Jef Sneider attended the recent Maimonides Society event, where Weisenthal spoke about his 20 years of surgical mission trips to Le Ceiba, Honduras.

Brandeis Baruch Society

The Brandeis Baruch Society of the Jewish Federation of Central New York hosted a get-together on March 15 at the Everson Museum of Art. L-r: Guest speaker attorney Michael J. Balanoff was joined by his wife, Eunice Balanoff; Brandeis Baruch Society Chair Bruce Smith; and Janice Smith. Michael spoke about his new work with Legal Services of Central New York. The Federation’s Brandeis Baruch Society recognizes the generosity of business, financial and legal professionals in the local Jewish community. The requisite for membership is a minimum family pledge of $1,000 to the Annual Campaign.

Lower East Side candy king holds firm against changing neighborhood

By Debra Nussbaum Cohen NEW YORK (JTA) – Walking into Economy Candy on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, it’s hard to know where to look first. To the foil-clad chocolate rabbits standing sentinel atop sacks of chocolate eggs? The stacks of kosher-for-Passover jelly rings and chocolate pops across the narrow aisle? The facing bins spilling over with peanut butter chews and saltwater taffy?

Make your way to the back of this Willy Wonka-esque store, past more of the 2,000 varieties of candy it sells, and the walls are lined with dispensers ready to release a rainbow of gumballs and jellybeans.

At a time when venerable Lower East Side companies like Streit’s Matzos are selling their increasingly valuable land to developers and departing (see related article on page 10), the decidedly old-school Economy Candy is holding firm.

Mitchell Cohen, who took over Economy Candy from his father two years ago after leaving his job at a leading investment bank, spent every Sunday he wasn’t in Hebrew school, and each school vacation, helping his parents at the store. Now he gets a regular stream of calls from people wanting to buy the building.

“We’re part of the neighborhood,” said Cohen, 29.

“We’re not going anywhere.”

Cohen’s grandfather, Morris “Moishe” Cohen, started the business in 1937 as Economy Shoe, a repair shop with a pushcart in front selling candy and dried fruits.

When Moishe, whose family had emigrated from Greece, returned to the Lower East Side after serving in the Army, he and his brother-in-law took over the place and renamed it Economy Candy.

Moishe Cohen’s family lived for a time on the third floor of the building that houses Economy Candy, back when it was a tenement. He died in his sleep in February at 97.

Wishing peace, health and happiness to all this Passover The Faculty & Staff of the S.U. Jewish Studies Program

Mitchell Cohen at Economy Candy on New York’s Lower East Side. (Photo by Debra Nussbaum Cohen) Today, Economy Candy inhabits all three stories, with the upper levels used for storage and packing web orders. The retail space on the first floor is full of candies of every imaginable variation and is a thriving, if slightly bedraggled, remnant of the old Jewish neighborhood amid the hipster hotels and pricey boutiques that share Rivington Street with bodegas and bars.

Back in Moishe’s day, Lower East Side streets bustled with hundreds of thousands of Jewish immigrants. There were six or seven other candy stores in the immediate vicinity, says Mitchell Cohen. “Now we’re one of the only family-owned Jewish businesses left,” he said.

With the departure of Streit’s, which baked its last Passover matzah on Rivington Street on March 1, the only other one left is Russ and Daughters, the legendary lox-and-bagels shop run by its founder’s great-grandchildren. A few other Jewish food purveyors remain – Katz’s Delicatessen, Yonah Schimmel knishes, Kossar’s bialys and The Pickle Guys (who took over the famed Guss’ pickles) – but none are run by their founding families.

The dairy restaurant Ratner’s shut down in 2002 and the property is now being marketed as a development site.

“The Lower East Side has gone through so many transformations since my great-grandparents – and everybody else’s – lived there a century ago that our ancestors would plotz if they saw it,” said Julie Cohen

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(no relation to Mitchell), director and producer of “The Sturgeon Queens,” a documentary about Russ and Daughters. “But when I’m down there I can still feel the spirit of what it used to be.”

Today there are some 14,000 Jewish households in the neighborhood, says Laurie Tobias Cohen, the executive director of the Lower East Side Jewish Conservancy, which runs tours of the area. The preponderance of residents are Chinese, Puerto Rican or African-American – and those who can afford the million-dollar apartments going up. Still, Tobias Cohen says, between synagogues, shtiebels and new Jewish-owned boutiques and galleries, “There’s still a lot of Jewish life kicking on the Lower East Side.”

On a recent wintry afternoon, a constant stream of shoppers flowed through Economy Candy’s aisles.

Manny Rodriguez, who describes himself as a regular at the store, had just purchased a fistful of Clark bars.

“I come more than I should,” he said.

Hand-dipped chocolate-covered graham crackers and chocolate-coated jelly rings are perennially popular, Mitchell Cohen says, with orders coming in from all over the country. Earlier that day, someone had ordered 300 pounds of orange jelly fruit slices.

Green tea-flavored Kit Kats, which a number of customers had come in requesting after trying them in Japan, were Cohen’s biggest challenge: None of his usual distributors knew how to get them. He called Asian grocery distributors to no avail. Eventually he found one in Queens who could procure them and he placed an order for 300 bags. They were gone in two weeks.

The current candy crush is for English Cadbury chocolates, which are newly unavailable in the United States. The main ingredient in the American version is sugar. But the ones made in England list milk as the first ingredient, and devotees are fanatically loyal to their Flakes and Maltesers.

Hershey, which owns the American rights to Cadbury, has brought trademark infringement claims against a major distributor of the British product, which stopped importing them. Cohen stocked up as soon as he heard.

And while he still has some on his shelves, he knows they won’t last long.

Unlike some of his Jewish customers, Cohen isn’t overly nostalgic for the bygone Lower East Side. His grandparents had left the neighborhood when his father See “Candy” on page 12

APRIL 2, 2015/13 NISAN 5775 ■

How to eat a Passover dinner in style

zine and joyofkosher.com staff members,

By Alina Dain Sharon and Geller herself, “stretch, and flex, and JNS.org For some of us, a certain measure of exercise our culinary muscles each and austerity is associated with the Passover every year coming up with new, creative, holiday. Just as our people were forced to inspired and easy recipes and menus to eat unleavened bread after escaping from make this Passover the most delicious, slavery in Egypt, we forgo bread and other enjoyable, memorable holiday ever,” leavened products in favor of matzah for a Geller said.

The following recipes from joyofkoweek. At the same time, restaurant chefs, cookbook authors and home cooks alike sher.com can make for a fancy kosherhave been embracing the idea that cooking for-Passover dinner that Geller believes on Passover does not need to be inherently will impress your guests.

Appetizer: Salmon Cakes bland – and can even be upscale.

“The purpose of Passover is to celebrate with Tropical Fruit Salsa Croquettes are cute and elegant for your our freedom from slavery in Egypt. Eating unleavened bread/matzah is due to the starter course. They’re also wonderfully New Patients haste in which we left. But by no means light and refreshing. The tropical salsa is Welcome is the purpose of Passover to remember a combination of fresh pineapple, mango, and lime juice the lack of normal food,” says Board “Joy of red onion, jalapeno, cilantro New Patients the richness Kosher” cookbook author JaimeCertified Geller. – the perfect complement to Welcome “As with all celebrations, we mark this of the salmon. The balance of sweet and ker momentous, life altering, sea splitting savory flavors instantly pleases the palate.

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Salmon Cakes with Tropical Fruit Salsa, part of Jamie Geller’s upscale Passover dinner menu. (Photo by Joy of Kosher Magazine with Jaime Geller) Ready Time: 1 hour Servings: 10 cakes Ingredients for cakes: 1 (2-lb.) side of salmon, skin on ½ cup red onion, diced 2 Tbsp. matzah meal 2 large eggs, lightly beaten 1 tsp. kosher salt Freshly ground black pepper 4 Tbsp. olive oil

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Ingredients for salsa: 1 cup diced pineapple ½ cup diced mango ½ cup diced red onion 2 Tbsp. chopped cilantro ½ jalapeno, seeded and finely chopped Juice of 1 lime ½ tsp. kosher salt 1. Preheat oven to 350°F and lightly grease a large baking sheet. Bake salmon skin side down for 25-30 minutes or until cooked all the way through. Let cool completely.

2. Once salmon is cooled, gently flake away from the skin and break into large chunks. Place in a large bowl and combine with eggs, red onion, matzah meal, salt and pepper. Stir to mix well. Scoop about 1/3 cup at a time into your hands and form into a round patty about ¼-inch thick. Place on a sheet pan and repeat with remaining mixture until you have formed 10 cakes.

Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

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JEWISH OBSERVER ■ april 2, 2015/13 NISAN 5775

Houthi crisis sheds light on antisemitism and plight of Jews in Yemen

(JNS.org) – As Shi’a Muslim Houthi rebels continue overtaking Yemen and the country’s capital, Sana’a, after the escape of Western-backed President Abd-Rabbu Mansour, the Houthis vowed to take revenge on “the Zionist Saudi regime” in their country.

This is not the first time the rebels have used the term “Zionist” or other pejorative slogans referencing Israel and Jews, such as their use of “Death to Israel. A curse on the Jews” on flags and other propaganda materials. The week of March 20, a suicide bomber blew up a Houthi mosque where the crowd had been shouting “Death to America. Death to Israel. Curse upon the Jews. Victory

to Islam. Allahu Akbar,” the Times of Israel reported.

Meanwhile, Yemen’s small Jewish community finds itself in a precarious position amid the ongoing conflict.

“The situation is very bad here. Every day – there is danger. We want to sell the house, but can’t. No one wants to buy. The [non-Jews] want us to leave without getting money. We want to get out of here as quickly as possible,” said Avraham, 40, a father of five from the city of Rayda, reported Israel Hayom.

“We know that you in Israel are worried about us and are thinking of us. Our country is being taken over and there isn’t much we can do. We want to move to Israel

but we have matters to finish tending to and everything here is very difficult,” said Yehiye, 35, a father of six from Sana’a.

Both Iran and the Lebanon-based terror group Hezbollah, which are siding with the Houthi rebels, have condemned the airstrikes launched by Saudi Arabia on Yemen to try to stop the rebels. “This aggression will have no result except to spread terrorism and extremism, and increase insecurity throughout the region,” said Iranian Foreign ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham. Hezbollah condemned the strikes as “unjust aggression,” Reuters reported.

Some of Lincoln’s best friends were Jews

By Beth Kissileff (JTA) – A whopping 16,000 books have been written about President Abraham Lincoln. But a new book and an exhibit at the New York Historical Society tell a previously untold story about Lincoln: his relationships with Jews.

Benjamin Shapell has been collecting documents relating to Lincoln and the Jews for more than 35 years, housing them in the archives of the Shapell Foundation.

For the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s assassination, Shapell persuaded Jonathan Sarna, the Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis University, who had written a book about General Ulysses S. Grant and the Jews and co-edited a Civil War reader, to help organize the material so it could be shared with a wider audience.

Interestingly, for a project connected with physical archives, the Internet proved a boon. The American Jewish newspapers from Lincoln’s time are all online now, so for any name mentioned in a document, a search could be made in contemporary newspapers.

Going through the massive amount of documents was not the only challenge facing the pair: Sarna collapsed while attending his daughter’s college graduation last May, after a first draft had been handed in. Though he is not completely

back to full strength, Sarna said about his health, “Baruch Hashem, yom yom” (Thank God, day to day).

Their collaboration yielded a book, “Lincoln and the Jews: A History” (Thomas Dunne Books), and the New York Historical Society exhibit, which runs until Sunday, June 7.

The documents, Sarna said, give “a real sense of Lincoln the human being, who writes to all sorts of people” and show that “the private Lincoln is as impressive as the public Lincoln.”

As the exhibit shows in a graphic display, Lincoln had 120 Jews in his circle, among them five friends and 48 acquaintances. The friends included Abraham Jonas, an Illinois lawyer and one of the first to suggest Lincoln’s candidacy for the presidency. In an 1860 letter, Lincoln told Jonas, “You are one of my most valued friends.”

Others in his circle included his podiatrist, Issachar Zacharie, who traveled to the South to gather information on Lincoln’s behalf, and Lincoln’s personal physician, “a Jew named Lieberman,” Sarna said.

As America’s Jewish population grew – from 3,000 in 1809, the year Lincoln was born, to 150,000 when he was assassinated in 1865 – Lincoln encountered “more and more Jews,” Sarna said, adding that the archival materi-

als indicate that Lincoln was “distinctive” for his time in judging people “as people, not by religion or race.”

The exhibit consists mainly of letters, along with lithographs, photographs and paintings, and collectively they show that Lincoln not only knew Jews, but was willing to act on their behalf. The exhibit covers Lincoln’s quickness at rescinding Grant’s General Orders Number 11 (the subject of one of Sarna’s previous books), which barred Jews, who were suspected of smuggling cotton, from areas under Grant’s control. In 1862, the president also appointed the first Jewish military chaplain for the 7,000 Jews in the Union Army.

Some of the first eulogies given for the president were the homilies delivered by rabbis in synagogues the next day, a fact duly noted in the press at that time. The prominence of Jews connected to Lincoln “normalized the place of Jews” in American society, Sarna said.

Sarna said he would like to see American Jewish day schools include the “Lincoln and the Jews” material in their U.S. history courses in order to “imbue students with the sense that Jews are part of history.

“I think when you see Jews as part of the polity today, recognized as equal, we are enjoying the fruits of seeds planted in Lincoln’s day,” he said.

Making, matzah

In eastern Ukraine, a unique matzah factory puts food on Jewish tables

By Cnaan Liphshiz DNEPROPETROVSK, Ukraine (JTA) – With one eye on a digital countdown timer, Binyamin Vestrikov jumps up and down while slamming a heavy rolling pin into a piece of dough. Aware of his comical appearance to the journalist watching, he exaggerates his movements to draw laughs from a dozen colleagues at the kneading station of Tiferet Hamatzot – a factory believed to be Europe’s only permanently open bakery for handmade matzah, or shmurah matzah.

Spain

Continued from page 7 The Spanish government estimates that about 90,000 people of Sephardic heritage will apply for citizenship, which will give them the right to live, work and travel throughout the European Union, the Financial Times reported. But the government expects that most applicants for citizenship won’t actually live in Spain, but will instead use a Spanish passport as a secondary one.

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But Vestrikov’s urgency is not just for entertainment.

Rather, it is designed to meet the production standards that have allowed this unique bakery in eastern Ukraine to provide the Jewish world with a specialty product at affordable prices. The factory here also offers job security to about 50 Jews living in a war-ravaged region with a weakened economy and high unemployment.

Each time Vestrikov and his coworkers receive a new chunk of dough, the timers over their work stations give them only minutes to turn it into a 2-pound package of fully baked matzah – a constraint meant to satisfy even the strictest religious requirements for the unleavened crackers that Jews consume on Passover to commemorate their ancestors’ hurried flight out of Egypt.

“The faster the process, the more certain we are that no extra water came into contact with the dough and that it did not have any chance of leavening,” says Rabbi Shmuel Liberman, one of two kashrut supervisors who ensure that the factory’s monthly production of approximately eight tons complies with kosher standards for shmurah matzah.

The time limitation means the entire production line has only 18 minutes to transform flour and water into fully baked and packaged matzah. Still, the workers are

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The Palace Theater, 2384 James St., Syracuse, NY 13206 April 23, 2015 • 5:30pm – 7:30pm Annual Meeting and Memorial Program to start at 6pm sharp TICKET PRICE: $35.00 Includes hors d’oeuvres, wine, beer and soda

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Binyamin Vestrikov, right, with other workers at the Tiferet Hamatzot factory in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, on December 8, 2014. (Photo by Cnaan Liphshiz)

Kashrut supervisor Rabbi Shmuel Liberman at the Tiferet Hamatzot factory in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, on December 8, 2014. (Photo by Cnaan Liphshiz) not complaining. They are happy to have a steady, dollar-adjusted income in a country whose currency is now worth a third of its February 2014 value – the result of a civil war between government troops and pro-Russian separatists that has paralyzed Ukraine’s industrial heart and flooded the job market with hundreds of thousands of refugees from the battle zones.

“It’s hard work, sure, but I am very happy to be doing it,” Vestrikov says. “I don’t need to worry about how to feed my family. There is very little hiring going on, and every job has dozens of takers because all the refugees from the east are here.” Rolling up a sleeve over a throbbing bicep, he adds, “Besides, this way I don’t need to go to the gym.”

Despite working under pressure in a hectic and overheated environment – the ovens at Tiferet Hamatzot remain heated for days, preventing the building from ever cooling off even at the height of the harsh Ukrainian winter – the factory’s workers form a tight community whose social currency is made up of jokes and lively banter, mostly on cigarette breaks.

Workers like Vestrikov say they receive good wages, but See “Ukraine” on page 15

APRIL 2, 2015/13 NISAN 5775 ■

Making, matzah

JEWISH OBSERVER

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At Streit’s 90-year-old Lower East Side factory, “the men” turn out their last matzah batch

By Gabe Friedman NEW YORK (JTA) – Seated in his Lower East Side office, in front of a large portrait of company patriarch Aron Streit, Alan Adler avoids becoming too nostalgic.

“It’s like I tell my family members: none of you own a car from 1935, why do you think a matzah factory from 1935 is what we should be using today?” says Adler, one of Streit’s Matzos’ 11 co-owners. This is the line of thought behind the imminent closing of the Streit’s matzah factory, a longtime Jewish fixture in a city neighborhood that once was home to one of the highest concentration of Jews in the country.

Streit’s, the last family-owned matzah company in the United States, announced in December that it would be permanently closing its 90-year-old factory after this Passover season because of longstanding mechanical problems and subsequent economic concerns.

Sometime in April, the company will shift its matzah production either to its other factory across the river in northern New Jersey, where several other products such as macaroons and wafers are made, or to another non-Manhattan location.

The greatly gentrified Lower East Side has seen its real estate values skyrocket in recent decades. Although Streit’s has not yet identified a buyer for its landmark building on Rivington Street, the property was estimated to be worth $25 million in 2008, when the company first considered shuttering the factory. “We should’ve been out of here five or 10 years ago,” says Adler, 63, who oversees the company’s day-to-day operations along with two cousins. “But we feel committed to the men [who work here] and we feel committed to the neighborhood, so we tried to keep this place afloat as long as we could. We probably could’ve stayed here even longer if I could’ve found somebody to work on the ovens.”

The ovens, identified only by “Springfield, Mass” on their side, date back to the 1930s. They are 75 feet long and are continuously fed a thin sheet of dough that emerges from the convection heat in perfect crisp form.

Streit’s does not disclose its official production numbers, but Adler says the factory churns out millions of pounds of matzah each year. However, Adler also estimates that the ovens are now about 25 percent slower than they used to be and he cannot find a mechanic willing to fix them.

The slower pace decreases matzah output and affects the product’s flavor.

But the ovens aren’t the only outdated element of the factory. Except for a few electrical parts added to the machinery over the years, nearly all of the other equipment is more than 70 years old. As a result, employees’ tasks have barely changed in over half a century – from mixing the flour in small batches (in under 18 minutes to satisfy kosher requirements) to separating the matzah sheets into pieces that then travel up to higher floors on a conveyor belt. “Nothing changes at Streit’s,” says Rabbi Mayer Kirshner, who oversees the factory’s kosher certification.

However, plenty has changed in the matzah business since Adler’s childhood in the 1950s and ‘60s, when he liked to spend time picking fresh matzah out of the ovens. Back in the “heyday,” as Adler calls it, of the 1930s through the 1960s, there were four matzah factories in the New York metropolitan area: Horowitz-Margareten and Goodman’s in Queens, Manischewitz in New Jersey and Streit’s in Manhattan. Horowitz-Margareten and Goodman’s were sold to Manischewitz, which was bought by the private equity firm Kohlberg and Company in 1990. (Today it is owned by Bain Capital, Mitt Romney’s former investment firm.)

At the Streit’s factory on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, matzah is broken into pieces and sent to be packaged in the same way it has been for over half a century. (Photo by Gabe Friedman)

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The Streit’s factory also used to boast a vibrant storefront with lines that spilled outside and around the corner.

Today there is still a retail counter, but often it is left unmanned. “Families have moved on, the Lower East Side has changed, so now we’ve sort of transitioned from a local bakery where people would stop by and pick up their matzah hot out of the oven in 1925 to now where 99.9 percent of our sales are wholesale to distributors who resell,” Adler says.

While his cousins helped at the retail counter, Adler, who joined the company 18 years ago after a law career, says he was always more comfortable working behind the scenes. In the factory’s freight elevator he has clearly ridden in innumerable times, he cracks a rare joke. “You couldn’t build an elevator like this today,” he says. “It’s passed every safety law from 1925 and not one since.”

Adler says the 30 factory employees were shocked by the news in December, but are taking it “surprisingly See “Streit’s” on page 14

Baked matzah came out of the oven at the Streit’s factory on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, date unknown. (Photo courtesy of Streit’s Matzos)

A Joyous Passover To all

Elihu & Iris Cohen

Ona & Bernie Bregman

Wishing you and your family peace, health and happiness this Pesach The Cominsky’s

Wishing you and your family peace, health and happiness this Pesach and family

Passover Greetings to you and yours

Cantor Francine & Barry Berg

May you and your family have a joyous Pesach

Steven & Linda Alexander

Wishing peace, health and happiness to all this Passover

Sydney Tenenbaum & Deidre Zehner

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JEWISH OBSERVER ■ april 2, 2015/13 NISAN 5775

When Jews found refuge in underground warren at Warsaw Zoo

By Cnaan Liphshiz WARSAW (JTA) – In a carriage bound for the Warsaw Zoo, Moshe Tirosh could sense his parents’ fear and the strong odor of alcohol wafting from the direction of the driver and his horse. The trepidation that rainy night in 1940 was from the Nazi soldiers guarding the Kierbedzia Bridge separating the family’s home from the zoo where they hoped to find shelter. As for the smell, it was the result of a successful ruse designed by Tirosh’s father to get them there safely.

His father, a carpenter, had instructed the driver to douse himself with vodka so the Nazi guards on the bridge, aware of German stereotypes about Polish drinking habits, would wave them through without inspection. “The risk was enormous, but my parents knew that our only chance of survival was getting to that zoo,” recalled Tirosh, 78.

Tirosh is one of 300 Jews whose lives were saved thanks to the little-known heroism of the menagerie’s director, Jan Zabinski, and his wife, Antonina. A lieutenant in the Polish resistance, Zabinski sheltered the Jews in underground pathways connecting the animal cages.

He also used the zoo to store arms for the resistance.

A meticulous scientist whose curt style could sometimes come across as uncourteous, Zabinski also cut an intimidating figure. “When Zabinski gave an order, people did what he said,” said Jan-Maciej Rembiszewski, the zoo’s director from 1982 to 2006, who began volunteering there after the war. “I’m sure even the Nazis respected his authoritarian style, which allowed him to run the place as his own fiefdom.”

In April, Tirosh, who now lives in Israel, will return to the zoo for the opening of a museum celebrating the Zabinskis’ heroism. In an interview at his home in Karmiel, Tirosh, a retired career officer in the Israel Defense Forces, recalls having a much different reaction to Antonina, a cheerful teacher who enjoyed painting and playing the piano.

“I was only 3½ years old, but I was already a suspicious war child out of the ghetto trained in keeping quiet for hours,” recalled Tirosh, whose parents told him to pray loudly to Jesus if he was ever seen alone by strangers lest he be taken for a Jew. “But when I saw Antonina, I told my mother, ‘I think we’ll be alright here.’”

Tirosh spent three weeks at the zoo, where he lived in a windowless underground room with his younger sister, receiving food from the Zabinskis and their son, Ryszard. For safety reasons, Tirosh’s parents stayed in a different chamber in the underground maze.

Jan Zabinski, the director of the Warsaw Zoo, helped shelter hundreds of Jews during the Holocaust. (Photo

by Wikimedia Commons) By the time Tirosh reached the zoo, many of the animals had been killed – some in hunting parties that Nazi officers held there – or shipped off to German zoos. Determined to keep the zoo running because of its value for the resistance, Zabinski turned it into a pig farm, according to “The Zookeeper’s Wife,” a 2007 book about the Zabinskis.

Sometimes Zabinski would smuggle pig meat into the Jewish ghetto, where the prohibition on its consumption had been largely abandoned because of a Nazi starvation policy that had Jews living on a diet of 187 calories a day.

At the zoo, Antonina communicated with her Jewish guests through a musical code, Tirosh recalls. “She played for us one piano tune and told us to sit tight and be very quiet if we heard that music, and then another tune to indicate the danger was over,” he said.

One day, Antonina gave Tirosh and his sister red hair dye to hide their natural black hair and make them look less Jewish. When the children emerged from the bathroom, Antonina’s son said they looked like squirrels, which became their code name. Tirosh says his confinement at the zoo was one of the few periods during the war when he remembers no pain or suffering.

After leaving the zoo, Tirosh and his sister went to live with Christian foster families, where he suffered abuse and disease and nearly died. After the war, Tirosh was reunited with his family. His father died of a heart attack in 1948 and the rest of the family immigrated to Israel in 1957.

Antonina died in 1971 and her husband in 1974. The Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem recognized both

Zabinskis as Righteous Among the Nations in 1965.

The new museum, in which visitors can tour the Zabinskis’ old villa at the zoo and the renovated maze of tunnels, also includes the piano on which Antonina warned her charges of approaching Nazis.

“This museum is not going to be a huge one, but from a commemoration point of view it’s among the most important of its kind because of the target audience – children,” said Jonny Daniels, the founder of From The Depths, a Holocaust commemoration organization that initiated the museum project together with the Panda Foundation, the zoo’s charitable arm.

“More than another town-square monument to nameless rescuers of Jews, here we have a tangible story of bravery at a

place frequented by children and possibly also groups visiting Holocaust sites who will be able to experience one of Warsaw’s most beautiful places.”

In recent years, plans to erect monuments in Warsaw for rescuers of Jews have stirred debate in Poland, with some critics charging that the emphasis on rescue serves to whitewash widespread Polish complicity in the annihilation of the country’s Jews.

Tirosh shares those concerns. Polish society, he says, exhibited a “deep-rooted antisemitism that fit very nicely with the Nazi plans for annihilation.” But he is not traveling to Poland for the museum opening to talk about Polish society. “I’m just going to pay homage to the couple that saved my life,” he said.

Moshe Tirosh, right, with Jonny Daniels, the founder of From The Depths, a Holocaust commemoration organization that helped create a new museum at the Warsaw Zoo. Tirosh hid from the Nazis for three weeks underground at the Warsaw Zoo. (Photo by From The Depths)

Candy

was still young, and he was raised on Long Island. But Cohen is getting married in May, and he hopes to have children who will one day take over Economy Candy, as he always knew he would.

Rivington Street will likely be different when they do.

“A lot of the stores – whether they’re old or new, candy shops or jewelry designers

Continued from page 8 – are quirky one-offs where you can find the owners working behind the counter.

And there are still a few places that drag their shmattes out onto the street to sell at a bargain price,” Julie Cohen said. “So even though most of the residents and retailers aren’t actually Jewish anymore, I guess I’d say the whole place is still actually pretty Jewy.”

Economy Candy is among the last of the classic Jewish-owned food businesses on the Lower East Side. (Photo by Debra Nussbaum Cohen)

Economy Candy as it looked decades ago. (Courtesy photo)

APRIL 2, 2015/13 NISAN 5775 ■

JEWISH OBSERVER

Is a new Jewish Portland rising in the east?

By Anthony Weiss PORTLAND, OR (JTA) – Until recently, Jo Borkan was thinking about leaving Portland. She had lived in the city almost her whole life and owns a house on the city’s east side. But Borkan craved a connection to Judaism, and she couldn’t seem to find one that fit with her spiritual explorations into yoga and meditation.

Despite her love for Portland, she mulled a move to New York or to the Bay Area.

However, in August, Borkan began co-leading Havdallah Yoga, a group that gathers each Rosh Chodesh, the beginning of the Jewish month, for a combination of yoga and Jewish ritual. Participants meet in a converted industrial building and are guided through a yoga practice that incorporates Jewish themes and rituals. In December, for example, yogis were encouraged to bring Chanukah menorahs, which lit up the otherwise dark space. A Havdalah service follows the month’s routine.

These days, Borkan, 30, says she no longer thinks about leaving Portland to find her Jewish community. “Honestly, at least for now, [Havdallah Yoga] has totally filled that need,” she told JTA. And Borkan is far from the only one connecting to Jewish practice in nontraditional ways. Portlanders can celebrate Jewish holidays with ice cream sundae tasting menus; fill their growlers at a kosher, community-supported nanobrewery; or take part in a Jewish “gap year” program for recent high school graduates that combines social justice work with Jewish study.

In addition to embodying Portland’s famously quirky and creative culture, these points of connection represent a deeper transformation in Portland Jewish life.

After decades in which Jewish life was concentrated on the city’s more sedate west side, a new, grassroots-oriented brand of Judaism is now taking form east of the Willamette River, reshaped by the people who live there.

Historically, Portland’s Jewish community has largely lived on the west side of town and that is where the mainstream Jewish institutions – the Jewish Community Center, the Federation, the community day school and most of the

major synagogues – still reside. This, traditionally, has been the prosperous side of town, which includes the downtown business district, a number of upscale suburban neighborhoods and Portland State University.

However, in 2011, the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland’s population study came out – and the findings were shocking.

At 47,500, the number of Portland Jews was nearly twice as large as previously thought. What’s more, the vast majority of these previously unaccounted-for, and largely unaffiliated, Jews resided east of the Willamette River.

The ensuing communal discussions over outreach to Jews on the east side seemed to divide the city’s Jews into two categories: traditional vs. innovative, established vs. unaffiliated, older vs. younger. There is even a divide over whether or not such a divide exists.

“I’m not sure there’s any difference – I think there’s a perception that it’s different,” said Marc Blattner, chief executive officer of the Portland Federation, who helped publish the study that has kicked off so much discussion. “I just worry that the east side gets a lot of play because it’s the sexy side of town.”

Sexy, as in when the foodie website Eater recently listed its Essential 38 Portland Restaurants, 32 were east of the Willamette. When Jerry Seinfeld came to town to film his show “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” with comedian and “Portlandia” star Fred Armisen, they got coffee, lunch and even visited a high-style taxidermist/toy shop, all without venturing to the west side of town.

Unlike Blattner, many of the city’s Jews insist that the divide isn’t limited to geography. “There really is a sense that there’s a different energy on the east side,” said Ariel Stone, rabbi of Shir Tikvah, an independent synagogue on Portland’s east side. “What we joke about is that it’s an east side attitude or a feeling. You can be a west sider and have it.”

Jewish life on the east side has a long history of ups and downs. For 75 years, up until 1986, the area was home to a synagogue, Tifereth Israel. “It was a dying congregation,” said Eric Kimmel, 68,

At left: Johanna Borkan, pictured here, found the Jewish community she sought in Portland by partnering with Yael P o d e b s k i t o c re a t e Havdallah Yo g a .

(Photo by Justin Bailie Photography)

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Rabbi Ariel Stone, in front, and the congregants of Shir Tikvah, the only synagogue on Portland’s east side. (Photo by Gary Teasdale) a children’s book author, who moved to Portland’s east side in 1978, lured by the then-cheap real estate. “One of the older members would lead the service, and he didn’t see so well, so he would skip pages, and we would be so jumbled up.”

After Tifereth Israel closed in the 1980s and was absorbed into another congregation, Jewish life on the east side was sparse.

A chavurah started in the 1990s, called the Eastside Jewish Community of Portland, but it has since closed.

However, the east side of Portland more generally was experiencing a revival, as transplants helped mold the freewheeling, do-it-yourself ethos that has become central to Portland’s image.

Some congregations began to notice that a growing number of their members lived on the east side. When the Reconstructionist synagogue Havurah Shalom bought its own building in the 1990s, it made sure to buy in the Pearl District, on the west side, but close to the river, so as to be accessible to its burgeoning east side population.

Then, in 2002, several members from a west side synagogue split off and founded Shir Tikvah, a nondenominational synagogue. They rented space from a local church. “We found out there was an east side Jewish population before the study was done, because we put out a shingle and they started coming out of the woodwork,” said Stone.

A pair of Chabad Houses have since opened on the east side as well.

In response to the population study, the Federation and several west side synagogues began hosting events on the east side. However, while some initiatives, like the PJ Library – a program that distributes free Jewish-themed children’s books, including Kimmel’s, via local Jewish institutions – have transitioned over successfully, some of the efforts have seemed more successful at bringing west siders to the east than at galvaniz-

ing unaffiliated east side locals. And two years after a family foundation helped arrange a $35,000 grant to help support Jewish life on the east side, there’s still money left – waiting to be used, said the Federation’s Blattner.

One boon to east side Jewish life came in the form of Nate DeGroot, a rabbinical student at Hebrew College in Boston, who fell in love with the city while working there one summer. Struck by what he saw as a lack of engagement among many younger, east side Jews, DeGroot, with the help of some Federation funding, returned the following summer to focus full time on founding and organizing Mikdash as a center for east side Jewish life.

DeGroot focused on identifying and talking to Jews – urging them to connect other passions in their lives to their interest in Judaism. For example, when he found out that east sider Jared Goodman was staging dessert events with multi-course tasting menus of ice cream sundaes, built around various themes, DeGroot worked with him to develop a series of sundae events for the Jewish holidays. He also helped Borkan, along with co-founder Yael Podebski, to develop Havdallah Yoga, and he still talks with the two via Skype every month.

“Nate was so instrumental because he continually repeated back to us, ‘I’m glad to be a support, but you guys know what you’re doing,’” said Borkan.

However, DeGroot has since moved to Israel to pursue his studies for a year, and he will not be ordained for another year after that, leaving Mikdash’s board members to carry the torch in his absence.

And yet his work, and his support from the Federation, has also spurred some resentment from some longtime east siders.

“It’s interesting that an outsider is getting [Federation funding] while people who live here and have made a commitment to the community are not getting

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See “Portland” on page 15

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JEWISH OBSERVER ■ april 2, 2015/13 NISAN 5775

Calendar Highlights

To see a full calendar of community events, visit the Federation's community calendar online at www.jewishfederationcny.org. Please notify jstander@jewishfederationcny.org of any calendar changes.

Friday, April 10 Seventh day of Passover Saturday, April 11 Last day of Passover Sunday, April 12 Conversation with Rabbi Charles Sherman at 10:30 am at Temple Adath YeshurunAnti-Defamation League program for Jewish teenagers from 1-3 pm at the Winnick Hillel Center for Jewish Life on the SU campus Monday, April 13 Temple Concord board meeting at 7 pm Syracuse Hebrew Day School Education Committee at 7 pm Tuesday, April 14 Jewish Community Center Executive Committee at 6 pm, followed by board meeting at 7 pm Wednesday, April 15 Deadline for the April 30 issue of the Jewish Observer Congregation Beth Sholom-Chevra Shas board meeting at 7:30 pm Thursday, April 16 Yom HashoahTemple Adath Yeshurun board meeting at 7 pm Saturday, April 18 TAY Hazak Shabbat at 9:15 am Sunday, April 19 Temple Concord blood drive from 9 am-1:45 pm TAY presents the film “Above and Beyond” at 10 am Federation presents communitywide Yom Hashoah event at Congregation Beth Sholom-Chevra Shas at 3 pm

d’var torah

The wicked son

By Rabbi Daniel A Jezer Growing up around our large seder table were all the members of our family: socialists, avowed atheists, a communist, an Orthodox rabbi and all levels of observant and non-observant Jews. That was our family. However, even my cousins who were alienated from tradition still recall the magic of this yearly important event. Each year, we would come together and chant the words of the haggadah. We were all well aware that our small community at the table was a microcosm of similar Jewish communities throughout the world and throughout ages, celebrating as we were the freeing and birth of our Jewish people. Although there are many other holidays and celebrations during the course of the year, none compares to the power of the seder.

Of particular importance to me was the short section of the four “sons” (now we say the four “children”).

Each is a typology: the wise, the wicked, the simple and the one who does not even know to ask. At our family seder, each of us children was assigned one of the characters. For some reason, and I do not recall why, I was assigned the “wicked” son, which is perhaps why, as I have studied the haggadah for many years, I have always found the “wicked” son the most interesting of the four.

In an obviously mocking tone, the “wicked” son challenges, “What is all this service and ritual to you?”

“To you” the wicked son challenges, and the haggadah comments, “to you, but not to him.” The haggadah then makes a bold assertion: “Since he has excluded himself from the whole, he has denied the essential.”

Although some commentators understand the “essential” as belief in God, I think that this explanation misses the power of the response. The haggadah is

Streit’s

well.” The company has told them that there are many jobs available at the New Jersey facility, but only three employees have taken the company up on the offer. Many of “the men,” as Adler calls the employees, live in Queens and take public transportation to work, meaning that a potential commute to New Jersey would be difficult.

Streit’s is working with the New York Department of Labor to help them find new jobs.

Anthony Zapata, who has worked at Streit’s for 33 years, and who Adler says does everything from packing matzah to putting out fires (“literally, not figuratively”), tells JTA that he is very depressed about the factory’s closing. He says the increased transportation costs of traveling to New Jersey would be too much for him. “I’m going to miss this place, and I’m going to miss everyone in it,” Zapata says. “I’ve never had a modern job to know what’s old, and what’s different between modern and old.”

Zapata, 53, says that all the employees are friends and have barbecues together around the city in the warmer months. “We’ll remain tight,” he says.

Adler does not betray many emotions on the matter, but he offers a bittersweet anecdote on the neighborhood’s evolution. Shortly before the company first thought of selling the property in 2008, a man living in one of the condos adjacent to the factory complained to Adler about the noise and flour dust coming out of the building. Adler responded to his requests by blocking in and sealing

Continued from page 11

Do You Know?

Your Federation dollars at work

Mikhail Musheyev cleaned a matzah dough mixer at the Streit’s factory. (Photo by Gabe Friedman) several factory walls, and when he saw the man months later, he told him what he thought would be “good news” about the factory’s potential closing.

“He said, ‘Oh, God, I don’t want condos – there won’t be enough parking on this street!’” Adler recalls. “All of a sudden he liked my noise and my flour dust.

“I don’t know what they’ll do with this building now,” he adds, “but people don’t like change.”

NEWS IN bRIEF From JTA

Hungarian rockers keeping Israel date despite profane objections

Mixing water with flour to make matzah dough at the Streit’s factory on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, date unknown. (Photo courtesy of Streit’s Matzos)

teaching that the essential of Judaism is community. We are a community. As a people, we have many differing religious and theological understandings, as well as social and cultural differences. Nevertheless, we are all part of the Jewish people, the Jewish community. The “wicked” son does not understand this, and sees Judaism as irrelevant worship and rituals, not as a community, and excludes himself.

The haggadah does not suggest responding to this challenge by lecturing the son on the beauties of the rituals, or the deep meaning of its theological principles. It responds to this son with an experiential type of response. It observes that had he been in Egypt at the time of the Exodus, he would have been left behind in Egypt, still a slave. Since he excluded himself from the community, he would not have been freed with the rest of the community. He would not have experienced the great adventure of our people.

He could not have enjoyed the richness of the great contributions our Jewish people have given to the world. The rituals are stimuli for us to remember and make alive the values we have been taught and learned from the times of the Exodus.

All of us have an aspect of this son within us. At times, each of us hears a voice asking, “Is it worth it?

Is all of this nonsense?” But then, hopefully, a different voice looks at the greatness of Judaism and responds, “How good is our portion, beautiful our heritage. I am happy that I am a member of the community and was redeemed from slavery in Egypt.”

Rhea and I wish all of you a very happy Passover. May it lead to a time when the entire world will be redeemed from slavery.

Rabbi Daniel A. Jezer is rabbi emeritus at Congregation Beth Sholom-Chevra Shas.

The Hungarian punk rock band Tankcsapdara said it will play Israel despite some profane and antisemitic objections by fans. The band’s bass player, Lukacs, said recently that the group, which is popular in far-right circles, will play Tel Aviv in June on its European tour despite the criticism on social networks, the news website index.hu reported. It will be the band’s first concert in Israel. “Anyone who knows us knows we do not get involved in politics and ideology,” Lukacs said. “On tour, we want to perform wherever possible.” On Israel, he added, “If Die Toten Hosen, Depeche Mode, Iron Maiden and Metallica play there, why shouldn’t we?” Reacting to the announcement of the Israel concert, one Facebook user wrote profanities about circumcised penises. Another posted a picture of a kippah emblazoned with the band’s logo. A third user wished “the artificiallycreated entity of Israel be wiped off the face of the earth” and wrote profanities about Tankcsapdara’s musicians.

By Jackie Miron Federation dollars are helping college students have immersive experiences, locally and nationally. The support by the national Federation organization supports Hillels on college campuses and assists students taking trips to help needy communities all around the country and the world.

Immersive experiences include Jackie Miron Birthright programs that you may have read about in a previous Jewish Observer. Brian Small, the executive director of Hillel at Syracuse University, discussed Hillel’s Alternative Spring Break and Alternative Winter Break programs at Syracuse University, which were made possible by Federation Community Program Fund grants.

Almost 10 years ago, Hillel sponsored a trip to New Orleans to help needy communities affected by Hurricane Katrina. Hillel International oversaw student volunteers and staff and ensured their safety. It was considered a resounding success. Students rallied around the project, describing it as life-changing, interesting, useful and on a par with a study abroad experience.

Working with people in the U.S. highlighted the immediate needs of others without having to go abroad.

It provided an educational experience for students long-insulated on their college campus. Students were often described as thrown into a state of productive discomfort that got them thinking about community service differently.

As positive and enthusiastic as Hillel students were about the programs, funding was severely compromised as a result of the economic recession. Hillel International could no longer subsidize and organize the programs, but Small persevered and managed to procure resources from the Federation of Central New York to organize future trips through different providers.

Hillel now partners with the Jewish Disaster Response Corps, but without financial backing by the Federation, the trips would still be out of reach for the students.

Participants volunteered in disaster relief and engaged the local Jewish communities where they were working.

Thanks to Federation, students are able to have an experience they considered amazing and acquired useful social and construction skills. Not all college students spend their breaks on vacation. This program proves that there are some who want to help others. These young adults are committed to bettering society, an endeavor made possible by Federation dollars that help them rebuild communities devastated by natural disasters.

APRIL 2, 2015/13 NISAN 5775 ■

JEWISH OBSERVER

15

obituaries Celia Ettinger

Celia Ettinger, 91, died at Community Hospital on March 25.

Born in the Bronx, she was a merchandise manager for Frederick Atkins Inc., a retail consulting company in New York City. She had a talent for fashion and business, and was considered a pioneer in her field. She traveled extensively through Europe and Asia, seeking manufacturers and style trends that she then translated to her stores’ needs, from the smallest retailers to the largest department stores. She knew what would be successful and was respected by her customers and peers alike.

Her career provided her with the resources to enable her to care for her aging mother. She began a crusade in New York City’s garment district to raise funds to benefit the Sephardic Home. She raised large amounts of funds to help care for parents and family.

She was predeceased by her husband of 70 years, Joe, in October 2013.

She is survived by a daughter, Deborah Cramer; a son-in-law, Duane Cramer, of Cazenovia, NY; a daughter, Helaine Ettinger (Jeffrey Stein), of Seattle, WA; and two grandchildren.

Sisskind Funeral Service had arrangements. 

NEWS IN bRIEF From JNS.org

Israeli researchers cut Saturn’s day short

(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) – Israeli researchers have developed a computation method that has determined the exact length of one day on Saturn, or how long it takes for Saturn to make one full rotation. Experts at Tel Aviv University and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot published a paper in the prestigious journal Nature on March 25, declaring that one Saturn day is 10 hours, 32 minutes and 45 seconds long – approximately 6 minutes shorter than previously thought. There was a disagreement between the data the Voyager spacecraft took when it flew past Saturn in the early 1980s and came up with 10 hours and 39 minutes, and the Cassini spacecraft, which traveled around the planet in 2004 and recorded a different figure: 10 hours and 47 minutes. Unlike most other planets in our solar system, Saturn’s rotation is difficult to pinpoint thanks to its impenetrable gaseous atmosphere. While the solar system’s other gas giant, Jupiter, generates a magnetic field that sweeps around like the beam of a lighthouse, sending out radio waves that make it easy to measure how fast the hidden core spins under the gaseous atmosphere, Saturn’s magnetic and spin axes are aligned, making it difficult to determine the speed of the planet’s rotation. The Israeli team approached the challenge using a technique called statistical optimization, in which they estimated the speed of the planet’s rotation according to its gravitational field, the density of the material and its flattened shape. It was using this technique that they arrived at the final figure of 10 hours, 32 minutes and 45 seconds. “We cannot fully understand Saturn’s internal structure without an accurate determination of its rotation period,” said Dr. Ravit Helled of Tel Aviv University, adding, “We were determined to make as few assumptions as possible to get the rotational period. If you improve your measurement of Saturn’s gravitational field, you narrow the error margin.”

Portland

Continued from page 13 that kind of support,” said Sonia-Marie Leikam, an east side resident, Shir Tikvah board member and co-founder of Leikam Brewing, a kosher-certified community-supported nanobrewery. She stressed that she likes DeGroot personally and thinks he has done valuable work, but she wondered why the Federation turned to him, rather than active members of the Jewish community already living on the east side. “It’s more like ‘Hey guys, we’re right here in your backyard.’”

Despite some tensions, Jewish life is undeniably burgeoning on the east side. Two new Jewish preschools have opened in the past several months. Shir Tikvah, at 165 families, has expanded by 10 percent in the past year and is looking into purchasing a building of its own, though it may take the form of a flexible community space rather than a traditional synagogue structure.

Still, Blattner says it is too early to tell what the future of the east side will be and how well the recent burst of new activities can sustain itself. “They’re all so brand-new that I’m hoping in five to 10 years not only that they’re there, but that they’re mainstays all over town,” said Blattner. “That would be a blessing. But let’s see.”

Ê

Jerry Happek

Jerry Happek, 93, of DeWitt, died on March 21 at James Square.

Born in Germany, he was a Holocaust survivor. His family escaped Germany with a visa allowing them to enter Cuba, and then entered the U.S. through New York City. They ultimately settled in Syracuse. He graduated from the school of architecture at Syracuse University in 1951 and joined a company in Buffalo. He later returned to Syracuse for work, and met his wife, Natalie, at a Jewish Community Center dance. Most recently, he was associated with Galson and Galson.

He was a U.S. Army veteran and served in military intelligence because he spoke several languages. He saw duty in Italy, North Africa and Austria. He was passionate about classical music, was a skilled amateur photographer and was a life member of the American Institute of Architects.

He is survived by his wife of 56 years, Natalie; and their children, Wendy (Gregory Stauf) Happek, of Branchburg, NJ, and Susan Happek, of Atlanta, GA. Burial was in Frumah Packard Cemetery. Sisskind Funeral Service had arrangements.

Contributions may be made to WCNY, P.O. Box 2400, Syracuse, NY 13220-2400; or the Kidney Association of Central New York, 731 James St., Ste. 408, Syracuse, NY 13203. 

Ukraine

production costs and taxes in Ukraine are so low that the factory can still afford to charge customers significantly less than its competitors in the West, said Stella Umanskaya, a member of the Dnepropetrovsk Jewish community and the factory’s administrational manager.

A 2-pound box of Tiferet Hamatzot costs approximately $10 locally and $15 abroad compared to more than double that price for shmurah matzah produced in bakeries in Western Europe, such as the Neymann matzah bakery in France, or those operating in Israel and the United States.

Shmurah matzah, Hebrew for “guarded matzah,” is more expensive than regular matzah because it requires manual labor by people whose task is to guard that it does not become leavened bread – a concept derived from a verse in the book of Exodus that states “You shall guard the matzot.” Some consider it a mitzvah

Rechel Rubin Rappaport

Rechel (Rubin) Rappaport died on March 22 in New York City.

Born in Melitz, Poland, she, along with her mother and siblings – Yosef, Yochanan and Malka – escaped to Hungary to hide out until the war ended. Her brothers were both very active in the underground. Her father and her brother, Avraham Aharon Ber, were the first Jews in Melitz to be killed by the Nazis for standing up to and defying them. An older sister, Freida, and her husband, Mendel Friefeld, were in Auschwitz and managed to survive. He is mentioned in Yaffa Eliach’s book, “Hassidic Tales of the Holocaust.”

The Rubin family arrived in the U.S. at the end of the 1940s and settled in Brooklyn. She met and married Avraham Rappaport in 1954 and moved to Toronto, where he lived.

For the last six years, she lived with her daughters, Ruthie and La La, in Brooklyn and Far Rockaway.

She is survived by her husband, Avraham; her children, Chanie (Rabbi Yaakov T) Rapoport, Ruthie (Yehudah) Backer, Yossi (Chavie) Rappaport, LaLa (Avrumi) Slansky, Yehudis (Dovid) Kagan and Ezriel (Malka) Rappaport; and many grandchildren and greatgrandchildren.

Burial was in Beth David Cemetery, in Elmont, Queens, NY.  Continued from page 10 to consume shmurah matzah because it upholds that commandment of devoting special attention or effort to guarding the matzah.

For this reason, traditional Jewish law requires that the handling of matzah and its ingredients be done by Jews only. But the factory also employs more than a dozen nonJews who perform other tasks, including distribution.

To Rabbi Meir Stambler, the owner of Tiferet Hamatzot, this means the bakery “not only puts matzah shmurah on Jewish tables, but also helps build bridges and do mitzvot with non-Jews.” Stambler, an Israeli Chabad rabbi who lives in Dnepropetrovsk and opened the factory 12 years ago, said his father used to bake shmurah matzah in secrecy in Tashkent, when the Uzbek capital was still part of the Soviet Union and subject to its anti-religious policies.

“Back then, matzah used to be smuggled from Israel into the Soviet Union before its collapse in 1990,” he said. “It’s just unbelievable that now, some years later, we bake matzah in Ukraine and send it all over the whole world.”

PEXTON MEMORIALS Matzah on the production line of the Tiferet Hamatzot factory in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, on December 8, 2014. (Photo by Cnaan Liphshiz)

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16

JEWISH OBSERVER ■ april 2, 2015/13 NISAN 5775

Dinner

3. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl combine pineapple, mango, red onion, cilantro, jalapeno, lime juice and salt.

Mix well and set salsa aside.

4. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Fry five cakes at a time for about 5-8 minutes per side or until golden brown and crispy.

Drain on a paper towel lined plate while frying remaining cakes.

To serve, top each cake with a few tablespoons of salsa.

Side Dish: Eggplant Tomato Stacks These individual eggplant stacks are as beautiful as they are versatile – add ground beef to make them heartier.

Prep Time: 25 minutes Cook Time: 20 minutes Ready Time: 45 minutes Servings: 6 1 large, long eggplant, peeled and sliced lengthwise into ½-inch slices 2 eggs, beaten Eggplant tomato stacks ½ cup fine matzah meal with marinara sauce. or potato starch seasoned (Photo by Joy of Kosher with dried parsley, salt and Magazine with Jaime pepper Geller) Vegetable, walnut or hazelnut oil for frying 3 cups marinara sauce Fresh chopped parsley, for garnish 1. Preheat oven to 375°F. 2. Dip the eggplant slices in egg and then in the seasoned matzah meal.

3. Heat ¼ inch of oil in a large sauté pan over mediumhigh heat. Fry the eggplant in batches until golden on both sides; remove and drain on paper towels.

To assemble the Eggplant Stacks: 4. Lightly grease the bottom of a 9-by-13 inch pan.

Cover the bottom with a thin layer of sauce. Place one layer of eggplant, top with sauce, top with eggplant, and top with sauce again.

5. Bake covered for 20 minutes.

6. Garnish with fresh chopped parsley.

Dress it up: For a quick and elegant time saver, warm sauce and pre-plate individual stacks. Alternate 2 or 3 layers of eggplant and sauce and garnish with fresh herbs.

Homemade Marinara Sauce to go with the stacks: Prep Time: 20 minutes Cook Time: 25 minutes Ready Time: 45 minutes Servings: 3 cups 2 Tbsp. olive oil 1 tsp. dried oregano 2 bay leaves Kosher salt Fresh cracked black pepper 1 onion, finely chopped 3-4 garlic cloves, finely chopped 5 ripe tomatoes, chopped 1 Tbsp. tomato paste Marinara sauce. (Photo 2 cups water

by Veganbaking.net via 1. Heat the olive oil on a me- Wikimedia Commons) dium-high flame in a medium stock pot and then add the oregano, bay leaves, salt and pepper. Give a few good stirs to release the flavors of the spices.

Continued from page 9 2. Add the onions and garlic and sauté for 3-4 minutes or until translucent. Add the chopped tomatoes and cook down for another 5 minutes or until they start to fall apart. Add the tomato puree and the water, and cook over a medium flame for 20 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Main Course: Grilled Ribeye with Crispy Parsnips Ribeye is one of the most popular, juiciest, expensive steaks on the market. This cut is more marbled than others, which makes the steak especially tender a n d f l a v o r f u l . Grilled Ribeye with Crispy Crispy parsnips are Parsnips. (Photo by Joy of Kosher the perfect, slightly Magazine with Jaime Geller) sweet alternative to French fries.

Prep Time: 15 minutes Cook Time: 30 minutes Ready Time: 45 minutes Servings: 6 8 medium parsnips, peeled 4 cups olive oil 6 ribeye steaks, 1-inch thick, room temperature (6-8 ounces each) Kosher salt Freshly ground black pepper 1. Using a peeler, peel parsnips into thin strips until you cannot peel anymore of the parsnip.

2. Heat oil over medium high heat. Fry parsnips in batches for 2-3 minutes or until golden brown. Remove and let drain on paper towels and sprinkle with salt.

Repeat until all parsnips are fried.

3. Heat grill pan over high heat. Season steaks liberally with salt and pepper and grill for 4-5 minutes per side for medium rare doneness. Let rest 5 minutes before serving or slicing.

Dessert: Chocolate-Mango Ganache Truffles A classic ganache has cream and butter in it, but this ganache is pareve and works well for cake fillings, frosting Chocolate-Mango Ganache Truffles. and truffles.

Servings: 36 (Photo by Joy of Kosher Magazine with Jaime Geller) truffles 14 ounces bittersweet chocolate (at least 70 percent cacao) 1 cup mango puree (I prefer Ceres brand) 2 egg yolks 1 vanilla bean, scraped 1. In a small saucepan over low heat, melt the chocolate with the mango puree, being careful not to burn the chocolate. Cool slightly.

2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, whisk the egg yolks and vanilla bean on high speed to a ribbon stage. (When the whisk is lifted, the mixture falls back into the bowl, forming a ribbon-like pattern on the surface). Turn the mixer speed down and pour the chocolate mixture into the eggs. Scrape down the bowl and return the mixer to high speed. Whip the chocolate ganache until it has completely cooled and is fluffy (about 5 minutes).

The ganache can be stored, covered with parchment or plastic on the surface, in the refrigerator for up to one week or frozen for up to one month.

3. To roll the ganache into truffles, chill overnight.

Scoop a small amount of ganache with an ice cream scooper and roll between your hands gently. Roll the truffle into cocoa powder or chopped nuts, or dip it into melted chocolate. Store the truffles in the refrigerator for up to one week.

Jamie Geller is a best-selling cookbook author.

Geller, “The Bride Who Knew Nothing,” the “Queen of Kosher” (CBS) and the “Jewish Rachael Ray” (New York Times), is the creative force behind JoyofKosher.com and “Joy of Kosher with Jamie Geller” magazine. Geller and her husband live in Israel with their five children. Her latest cookbook, “Joy of Kosher: Fast, Fresh Family Recipes,” was published in 2013.

All recipes except the dessert are courtesy of Jamie Geller and “Joy of Kosher with Jamie Geller Magazine.”

The recipe for Chocolate-Mango Ganache Truffles is courtesy of Chef Laura Frankel and “Joy of Kosher with Jamie Geller Magazine.”

NEWS IN bRIEF From JTA

Netanyahu: Iran deal “confirms all of our concerns”

The framework deal on Iran’s nuclear program is worse than Israeli leaders have feared, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his Cabinet. “This agreement, as it appears, confirms all of our concerns and even more so,” Netanyahu said on March 29 at the weekly Cabinet meeting. Netanyahu also said he had just come from a conversation with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and that he had spoken over the weekend with Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV). “I heard from both of them about strong and continuing bipartisan support for Israel and of course this is very important. I expressed to them our deep concern over the agreement being formulated with Iran in the nuclear talks,” he said. The United States and five other world powers, known as the P5+1, have set March 31 for reaching an agreement. According to reports emerging over the March 29 weekend, Iran has agreed to limit uranium-enriching centrifuges to 6,000 at its main nuclear site for at least 10 years, as well as running centrifuges at its underground Fordo nuclear site. Nuclear material may be produced for energy, science and medicine. The sites would be subject to international inspection and no work could be done that would lead to a nuclear bomb.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met early March 29 in Lausanne, Switzerland, the site of the current talks, with his Iranian counterpart, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. Kerry canceled a trip back to the United States, where he was to attend an event honoring the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, in order to remain at the talks.

Netanyahu also cited the takeover the week of March 27 large parts of Yemen by the Iran-allied Houthi militia. “After the Beirut-Damascus-Baghdad axis, Iran is carrying out a pincers movement in the south as well in order to take over and conquer the entire Middle East,” Netanyahu said. “The Iran-Lausanne-Yemen axis is very dangerous for humanity and needs to be stopped.”

Russia’s Putin pledges support for Palestinian state

Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country will support efforts to build a Palestinian state with a capital in eastern Jerusalem. Putin pledged his support on March 28 during a meeting of the Arab League in the Red Sea resort city Sharm el-Sheikh. “Palestinians have the right to establish an independent and habitable state with a capital in East Jerusalem,” Putin reportedly told the leaders of 22 Arab states, according to media reports. He added, “Russia will continue to contribute to achieving this goal through bilateral and multilateral channels.” Putin reportedly also called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to congratulate him on his re-election and to discuss the talks on Iran’s nuclear program, to which Russia is a party as part of the P5+1 world powers.

ZAKA rescue team heading to Germanwings crash site

A delegation from Israel’s ZAKA emergency response organization will be flying to the Germanwings crash site in the French Alps. The eight volunteers from the ZAKA International Rescue Unit were scheduled to leave early March 30 to assist in the search and recovery mission at the site of a crash that killed all 150 people on board.

Along with assisting the local search teams, the ZAKA volunteers will be tasked with recovering and returning for a Jewish burial in Israel the remains of Eyal Baum, an Israeli citizen who was on board the flight that crashed March 24 on the way to Dusseldorf, Germany, from Barcelona, Spain. The Baum family received permission from Lufthansa, the parent company of Germanwings, to send the ZAKA delegation to assist in the recovery effort. French and German officials are investigating why co-pilot Andreas Lubitz apparently crashed the Airbus 320 into the French Alps deliberately. Lubitz, 28, appears to have kept the senior pilot out of the cockpit after the first officer left the cabin mid-flight, according to what was heard on the cockpit black box recording.

Israel unfreezes Palestinian tax revenues

Israel will release Palestinian tax revenues that it froze almost three months ago, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement. Netanyahu “approved the recommendation of Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon, the Israel Defense Forces and the Israel Securities Authority to transfer to the Palestinian Authority tax revenues that have accrued in recent months,” the Prime Minister’s Office wrote on March 27. The revenues, hundreds of millions of dollars that Israel collected on behalf of the Palestinian Authority as part of a standing arrangement established under the 1993 Oslo Accords, have been withheld for the past four months following the authority’s application to join the International Criminal Court inThe Hague.The criminal court membership, which may allow Ramallah to expose Israel to a war crimes charges, is expected to come into effect on April 1.